Me and my family were having a campfire in our backyard ( in a fire pit ) a while ago and our neighbors came up to us and complained. Apparently it's illegal. Is this so? The only laws about this that I know about is that it has to be under 1/2 m. high by 1/2 m in diameter.

Having a fair amount of experience with having fire departments called on me for having a campfire in my back yard I have never been told by the fire department that it was illegal. Now your size is right .5 by .5 meters. One thing that I was asked to do however was have a bucket of water or a charged hose close by just in case. Now with that said each municipality has it's own rules safe bet is to phone your local fire department. And as of today I know for a fact that campfires in surrey have been banned for now.